‘You don’t forget’: Mexican-American Medic’s Holocaust diary tells story of hell
There are no words …
Washington (CNN) — The tattered journal, its pages yellow with age, contains the painful memories of a U.S. medic, a man who recorded the deaths of soldiers who survived one of World War II’s bloodiest battles yet met their end as slaves in Nazi Germany.
32. Hamilton 4-5-45
33. Young 4-5-45
34. Smith 4-9-45
35. Vogel 4-9-45
36. Wagner 4-9-45
“Some were dying,” said its author, Tony Acevedo, now 86. “Some died, and I made a notation of that.”
Flipping through the pages, you encounter a horrific part of world history through the eyes of a 20-year-old inside a slave labor camp. Amid the horror, the journal captures extraordinary human moments of war. Acevedo sketched beautiful women in the back pages, pinups whose eyes provided comfort amid hell.
Acevedo kept the diary hidden in his pants. He feared death if the commanders saw it. Yet he believed it was his duty as an Army medic to catalog the deaths and the atrocities against the 350 U.S. soldiers at the camp known as Berga, a subcamp of the notorious Buchenwald compound.
With his hair silver-streaked and a smile that exudes charm, Acevedo recently made the journey from his California home to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in the nation’s capital. He carried his Red Cross medic’s band, a cross that provided comfort in war and his diary. He also brought a prayer book that he read to the sick and dying.
“I speak for all my buddies who were there,” Acevedo told museum staff members in a private ceremony. “I turn this over to the Holocaust museum with honor and pleasure, with all my heart.”
He spoke softly, gently. Like the book itself, his hands showed the mark of time. His face beamed with pride, his chin held high. On his lapel, he wore a pin with a star and beneath it the words: “U.S. Army.”